Yamato people

Yamato
大和民族

Yamato-no-Takeru, prince of the imperial dynasty
Regions with significant populations
Japan
Languages
Japanese
Religion
Traditionally Shinto and Japanese Buddhism Largely Irreligion Minority Christianity, Japanese new religions
Related ethnic groups
Ryukyuan people Yayoi people Ainu people Jōmon people

The Yamato people (大和民族, Yamato minzoku, lit. 'Yamato ethnicity') or the Wajin (和人 / 倭人, lit. 'Wa people')^[1] is a term to describe the ethnic group that comprises over 98% of the population of Japan. Genetic and anthropometric studies have shown that the Yamato people represent an ethnic assimilation of the Jomon people, who lived in the Japanese archipelago since early times, and the Yayoi people, who migrated to Japan from the continent. The Yamato people are part of the Jomon cultural area, along with the Ryukyu people, located in Okinawa, and the Ainu, found in Hokkaido.

It can also refer to the first people that settled in Yamato Province (modern-day Nara Prefecture). Generations of Japanese archeologists, historians, and linguists have debated whether the word is related to the earlier Yamatai (邪馬臺). Around the 6th century, the Yamato clan set up Japan's first and only dynasty. The clan became the ruling faction in the area, and incorporated the natives of Japan and migrants from the mainland.^[2] The clan leaders also elevated their own belief system that featured ancestor worship into a national religion known as Shinto.^[2]

The term came to be used around the late 19th century to distinguish the settlers of mainland Japan from minority ethnic groups inhabiting the peripheral areas of the then Japanese Empire, including the Ainu, Ryukyuans, Nivkh, as well as Chinese, Koreans, and Austronesians (Taiwanese indigenous peoples and Micronesians) who were incorporated into the Empire of Japan in the early 20th century. The term was eventually used as race propaganda. After Japan's surrender in World War II, the term became antiquated for suggesting pseudoscientific racist notions that have been discarded in many circles.^[3] Ever since the fall of the Empire, Japanese statistics only count their population in terms of nationality, rather than ethnicity.